


(you're my) you're my underscore, my kite in a thunderstorm

by elsinorerose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Fluff, I don't know how to tag this, Soup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 15:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18318359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsinorerose/pseuds/elsinorerose
Summary: Caleb is not sick. He is not sick, because he is one of the most accomplished wizards in Wildemount, a master of the arcane, a wielder of terrible magic beyond the comprehension of the vast majority of mortal minds, a battlemage with blood-drenched hands, a war criminal, a force to be reckoned with, andforces to be reckoned with don't get colds.





	(you're my) you're my underscore, my kite in a thunderstorm

**Author's Note:**

> The Widojest discord demanded fluff. I live to serve. Title from "Magnetic North" by Aqualung. (Unbeta'd, please be gentle!)

Caleb is not sick.

He is not sick, because he is one of the most accomplished wizards in Wildemount, a master of the arcane, a wielder of terrible magic beyond the comprehension of the vast majority of mortal minds, a battlemage with blood-drenched hands, a war criminal, a force to be reckoned with, and  _ forces to be reckoned with don't get colds. _

He tries to explain this to Jester, but unfortunately just at this moment he has no voice.

"Lie down," Jester tells him for the fifth time. "Stop trying to talk, you'll only make it worse, Caleb. Lie  _ down!" _

"She's right, you have a fever," says Nott. "You need rest and soup."

This is betrayal, that's what it is. They've ganged up on him while he's at his weakest. It's cruel.

He's still trying to communicate this through a series of glares and gestures when he finds himself being pushed down onto the bed, Jester's hand flat against his chest, and he's even less capable of resisting her strength than usual, but that's not because he's  _ sick,  _ it's because he's...it's just because she's caught him off guard, that's all. He's just flustered. And hot all over, and weak in the knees. So just like most times Jester is touching him, or looking at him. 

Not that — wait — no, that's — 

His head sinks into an unexpected pillow before he gets the chance to correct his train of thought, and a wave of exhaustion floods through his body, but that's perfectly natural, they've been on the road all day and didn't make it here to the inn until after nightfall, of course he's exhausted. Everyone's exhausted. 

Well, Beau and Yasha are going dancing, and Fjord is hanging out at the bar downstairs trading drinks and stories with some of the local sailors, but, you know. In an exhausted way.

"Caduceus made you some tea," he hears Nott say, and there's a cup in his hands suddenly, steaming and fragrant, and sure, he'll drink some tea. He's not going to say no to a nice cup of tea that Caduceus took the time to make for him. Caleb props himself up a little bit against the pillows — there's three or four pillows, actually, he's not sure when they got there, Jester seems to have been fiddling with them a moment ago — and takes a sip.

_ Scheisse  _ does that feel good going down his throat. Which is hoarse and sore from screaming spells on the battlefield yesterday, and for no other reason.

"He's really hot," says Jester, frowning, pressing the back of her hand against Caleb's forehead. "I mean, in a fever way, you know?"

Gods, but her hand is so cool against his skin. When she takes it away Caleb almost leans forward and follows it, but the pillows are too comfortable. He sinks further into them and keeps drinking, lets the steam rise from the teacup into his nose, down into his lungs, easing everything, like rain falling on a dry field.

"Nott — " Jester is talking again, in that wonderful way of hers — "Go and ask Caduceus if he has anything to help bring this fever down. I don't think it's anything to worry about, but better to be safe, yeah?"

Nott says something in reply, and a few moments later Caleb hears the door close. Ah — his eyes are shut. He opens them, and Jester is leaning over him, taking the now-empty teacup from his hands, and he's pretty sure she's trying to suppress a smile.

"Aw, Caleb." She smooths his hair back from his forehead. "I'm sorry you're so sick."

_ I'm not sick,  _ he tries to say — but it comes out as something even less than a whisper, and his throat burns.

Jester stifles a giggle. "Here, maybe this will help."

She's pushing something into his hands — it's her journal, he realizes, and a pencil, one of the ones she sometimes keeps tucked behind her horns. There's a bright green ribbon tied in a bow around one end. It's the best thing he's ever seen.

"You can just write whatever you want to say," adds Jester after a moment, and Caleb realizes he's just been staring.

Right. He swallows — painfully — and then flips the journal open to a blank page.

_ I am not sick,  _ he writes in a deliberate, elegant script.

"Oh, Caleb," smiles Jester when she bends over the book to read his writing. Caleb's heart gives an absurd flutter. "It's just depressing, is what it is. Like, it would be funny if you weren't obviously dying."

He arches an eyebrow at her.  _ Ridiculous,  _ he writes.  _ You have gone off the deep end, Lavorre. _

She laughs. And then she sits down on the bed next to him, up by his shoulders so she can see everything he writes, and she says in that perfect accent, the epitome of sugar and spice, "You do realize you can't even breathe through your nose right now."

_ False.  _ If his hand shakes a little, it's just because she's sitting so close to him.  _ Breathing just fine. And if I am not, it is just allergies. _

Jester gives a little huff of disdain. "Yeah, so what are you allergic to, then?"

_ Ridiculous blue tieflings. _

He tilts just a hint of a smile up at her to let her know that — well, that he's joking, he supposes — that he's glad she's sitting here with him, in this low-lit room, with flickering candlelight and floorboards that creak. She could be downstairs, drinking and dancing with the others, but she's here, leaning against his shoulder and taking the pencil from his hand, her fingers brushing ever so slightly against his thumb, and writing in the journal underneath his words,  _ You are ridiculous, Caleb Widogast. _

He's never seen his name in her handwriting before.

It's nice.

Something...foreign, and yet intimately familiar, seizes him in its grip suddenly, and he takes the pencil back and writes,  _ Jester Lavorre, you are beautiful. _

Shit. Fuck. 

Caleb stares at the page.

He's definitely sick. He's got a raging fever, no voice, pressure built up behind his nose and his eyes and in the middle of his skull, his limbs are heavy and his mouth is dry. He's got the worst cold he's ever had, and it's making him delirious.

"You're sweet, Caleb," Jester murmurs, and he can't look up at her, can't even move with the heat rising in his face and ears and spreading down his neck to his chest — he coughs, to break the silence more than anything, but then he's really coughing, and it occurs to him that to bury himself under the sheets and blankets and pillows right now wouldn't be a bad idea.

Before he can act on this thought, Jester is standing up, one hand trailing along his upper arm before she leaves the bed, and the abrupt absence of her warmth is truly disconcerting — but she returns moments later, holding her silver holy symbol. 

"I'm gonna try a thing," she tells him. "I mean, I'm a pretty great healer, but there's no magic to cure the common cold — but I do think I have something."

She presses the holy symbol to her heart for a moment, and then she takes Caleb's face in her hands, and he's dying, the fever has spread to his heart, his pulse is out of control, and as Jester brushes her lips against his temple he feels a  _ glow  _ pass from her body into his, hot and cold at the same time, steam from a teacup and cool spring rain, and it is just — just — a little easier to breathe, and to swallow, and to move. An ache that he hadn't been aware of vanishes from his limbs. The pressure in his sinuses fades infinitesimally.

"There." Jester's voice is soft. She releases him — except, he thinks wildly, he will never be released, not now, not after this. "Hopefully that helps a little. The Traveler is  _ very  _ sympathetic when it comes to head colds. He had one for like three decades once, it was awful."

Caleb is pretty sure she is making that up. There is a little breath of a pink blush high in her cheeks, and she is avoiding his gaze. Maybe she's coming down with this too, he wonders. Maybe they are both beyond a cure.

There is a knock at the door, and Nott enters, bearing what looks like a bowl of soup and a small packet of herbs. 

"Willow bark, and chicken noodle," she announces, and: "Caleb, you look worse."

He feels worse. He feels lightheaded. A thousand things are starting to make sense all at once, and it's dizzying.

"I'll go and let you take care of him," smiles Jester.

_ No,  _ Caleb wants to say,  _ stay, take care of me — not her, you. I'm sick — I need you. _

But of course it all dies in his useless throat, and he has to content himself with watching her leave, with the way the candlelight dances in her hair and the way her dress sways around her ankles and the way her hand lingers for just a moment on the doorframe as she passes through and fuck,  _ verdammt noch mal,  _ he's in love with her. When did that happen? When did his heart just slip out of his grasp like that? When did he become  _ hers? _

"Caleb," prompts Nott.

He glances down, startled, and she's offering him soup, bless her,  she's got no idea, does she? 

(Does she? 

Does Jester?)

_ "Danke,"  _ Caleb whispers as best as he can — but even that small word cuts through his vocal cords like a knife, and he sighs, reaching for the journal again.  _ Thank you, Nott,  _ he writes,  _ but I am tired; I will have some later after I rest. _

It's only after he's shown her the page, and she's nodded, placed the soup on the bedside table and left him alone to sleep — it's only when he's just about to shut the book when he sees it, pencilled in faintly under his handwriting, in some moment he'd missed, too distracted or too exhausted or falling too hard. 

_ I can't breathe either, Caleb. _

Caleb curls up under the blankets, heat thrumming through his veins. This is betrayal, that's what it is. They've ganged up on him — his heart, and his soul, and even his body — while he's at his weakest. It's cruel.

He hopes he never gets better.

_ fin _


End file.
